How I would like to linger over those autumn days, to tell how rich they were; what a spirit pervaded the home that had never been there before; how mother and daughters drew together; how they established one afternoon a little female prayer-meeting, where mother, and Louise, and Dorothy, and little Nellie prayed in turn for John, such prayer as reached after him and drew him steadily though he knew it not; how in that meeting they prayed constantly, persistently, with a measure of faith, for the head of the household, and watched eagerly for sign of life in his still soul, but as yet saw none; how they enjoyed the rides to church, and to prayer-meeting on Wednesday evening; how Mother Morgan, who had never been used to going anywhere of an evening, astonished them all by making ready as a matter of course, answering Dorothy's wondering look by the sentence: "Of course I am going, child; I need all the help I can get." All these, and so many more experiences, I would like to give you in detail; but time will not wait for me—the days fly past.
They bring us to a certain evening, cold without, but very pleasant upstairs in Louise's room, whore Dorothy was lingering with her brother and sister, having a confidential chat, as she was now so fond of doing. They had grown to be wonderfully in sympathy, these three.
"Dorrie," Lewis said, "what do you think about a district prayer-meeting this winter? Don't you believe we could sustain one?"
Dorrie flashed a pair of glad eyes on her brother.
"Of course we could; there are enough in our family to sustain it, with Carey Martyn's help. Isn't Carey splendid, Lewis?" Dorothy sometimes said this, or something equivalent, several times in a day. "Where could we have one? At the school-house? How could we warm it? Could we furnish wood, do you think? Of course we could, if father would think so, and I guess he would."
Lewis laughed. "You take my breath away," he said pleasantly, and then the three laughed into eager talk about the district prayer-meeting. From that they went on to individual effort and individual cases.
"What about the Graham girls?" Lewis asked.
"Well, the Graham girls are progressing steadily. I'm wonderfully interested in Delia.—Have you talked with Delia, Louise? Don't you think she is an unusual girl?"
Then Lewis laughed again.
"You think each one of those girls is unusual, don't you, Dorrie? I think I have heard you make a similar remark of half-a-dozen of them."